


An Errant Muffin

by Charity_Angel



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Post-Episode s01e10 Nelson v. Murdock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-16 04:51:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19638943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charity_Angel/pseuds/Charity_Angel
Summary: In which a slip-up leads to a certain revelation being made early.





	An Errant Muffin

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Think Fast](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4698722) by [anthropophobist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthropophobist/pseuds/anthropophobist). 



> I was commenting on [Think Fast](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4698722) by [anthropophobist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthropophobist/pseuds/anthropophobist) and this idea popped into my head.
> 
> Not betaed. Barely checked over, because I've been out of the writing game for months and I managed to come up with a full 2100 words in an evening. So let me know if you see any mistakes.

It was a simple, stupid mistake in the end. Because Foggy knew the truth, Matt had relaxed around his friend, stopped playing the role of ‘normal blind person’ and just finally let him be himself. Foggy was usually of the opinion that Matt as himself was a show-off and a dick, but that’s because Foggy was sore about being beaten at foosball by a blind guy. Matt tried to reassure him that he would always have the advantage if they tried pool, or darts. Because while Matt might know where all the balls were on a pool table, he had no way of knowing which ones he should be aiming at, and a dartboard was just… no. At least throwing things at bad guys’ heads, they made noise to tell him where they were. A dart board was a big circle of blank. The wiring delineating the scoring zones wasn’t distinct enough for him to perceive it from a distance. Up close and touchable was a different matter, but Foggy had suggested that really _was_ cheating.

It was a thrown muffin that caught them out. Quite literally. Foggy hadn’t thought anything of it: he’d thrown Karen her treat, then Matt his. And Matt had caught it, equally thoughtlessly. It was Karen’s gasp of surprise before the stunned silence that made them both panic.

“We are definitely getting better at that,” Foggy choked out after a momentary hesitation, in an effort to explain as he set down the tray of coffees. “All those sponge balls in the face have paid off.”

Matt snorted, and he didn’t even have to work at being amused by that idea. Because it was absolutely something Foggy would do, and he had no idea why they actually hadn’t been doing this for years. Matt could have fumbled the first few catches until it looked like a smooth, practiced affair.

“Your aim has definitely improved,” he quipped back. “I just wish it had been that good the first time you tried it.”

“No.”

Shit, Karen sounded definite about that. She wasn’t wrong, to be fair to her, and she wasn’t stupid either.

“No, because you’d have done that in the first week after I started, to freak me out. That’s… Matt, how?”

“I could hear it coming,” he admitted, picking at the top of the muffin. The scent of orange became stronger.

“Yeah, no, try again.”

He set the muffin down on the arm of the sofa nearest to him and pulled off his glasses, setting them down around the muffin. “You want to grab a light and test my pupil reaction? Because I guarantee you it’ll be either really boring or really interesting, depending on your expectations. Boring if you expect them to not react. I really freaked out an ER nurse once.”

She got up and walked towards him. He followed her movements instinctively. That wasn’t something he had ever lost, and it would be stupid to start trying now.

“Okay, so your eyes don’t track, even if your face does,” she said slowly. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before. You’re almost always wearing your glasses.”

“Turns out most people are freaked out by someone not looking at them,” Matt said. He was aiming for a joke, even just a bit of levity, but it fell flat and he plucked and ate a cranberry from his muffin to cover up the awkwardness. (Foggy snickered. Foggy had lived with him and was not freaked out by his useless eyes any more. Not after so many mornings of Matt bumbling around their room half-asleep, or hung-over, or both. Foggy was pretty much the only person he didn’t feel the need to hide his eyes from. Claire was the other, but she was not entering into this conversation any more than she already had. It would be nice for Karen to be a third.)

“Most people are idiots,” Karen said firmly. “You’ve got nice eyes – I wish you wouldn’t hide them.”

(This was actually more the opposite of a conversation in college with Foggy, which had been more along the lines of “You do not need any more help getting girls. Please, for the love of your fellow man, hide those lady-killers and give the rest of us a chance.”)

Her hand moved to cup his cheek, her thumb stroking the skin around his left eye.

“You didn’t finch.”

“I knew where you were, and the air pressure changes when you come near my skin.”

Her hand pulled away, a derisive noise in her throat. Raspberry swirled from her hair as she turned away from him. “I… No-one can feel that, Matt.”

He sighed and tipped his head back. This… this was going to require the truth. Or parts of it, at least.

“I told you, that night you stayed at my apartment, that it was a car accident.”

She nodded tightly, and after a moment, Foggy piped up: “Matty, did you catch that? She nodded.”

He had, but only because he was really paying attention to her. Ordinarily he’d have missed it. Which was a conversation he needed to have with Foggy actually – how much was he missing because he was so used to Foggy narrating the world around him, only now he didn’t?

“Kind of,” he admitted, which drew surprised sounds from both of them – Karen because from her perspective he really shouldn’t be able to know that at all, Foggy because he pretty much assumed now that Matt could ‘see’ everything as well as he could. “Later, Foggy.

“It _was_ an accident, and there was a car. But there was also a truck full of… something. They never told us what. I remember there were barrels falling, and the glug of the stuff as it poured over the road, the smell…” He knew he was pulling a face at that – he’d never smelled anything like it since, although there had been plenty of acrid things in his life since, it wasn’t the same kind as vomit, or vinegar, or urine, or any other acid he’d encountered. It was closer to his toilet cleaner, if anything. Or bleach.

“And I remember the burning. I know it didn’t leave any scars – I can feel that – but the pain was unbelievable. Whatever it was, it didn’t leave anything externally, but internally? It destroyed my optic nerves, but it enhanced everything else. I really could hear the movement of the muffin through the air, and I could feel the pressure changes just before you touched me. Just like…”

In for a penny…

“You told me, that night, that you hadn’t kept a copy of the pension file; that you wished you had. I knew you were lying because your heartbeat picked up. I can always tell.”

“Human polygraph,” Foggy put in around a mouthful of his lemon muffin, and Matt appreciated his efforts, because he remembered it wasn’t that long ago that Foggy had been entirely freaked out by this and pissed that Matt had never told him. “It’s _really_ annoying. He calls me on my crap now.”

That made Karen hesitate: she had been working up a good head of steam about the fact Foggy was in on this too. Matt was keeping good tabs on her now, and her shoulders slumped as she turned towards Foggy. “What?”

“I only found out a couple months back,” Foggy told her.

“That’s what you were fighting about?” She was looking from one of them to the other, her voice changing cadence as she did so. Foggy probably wouldn’t notice that, even if he closed his eyes and tried.

“Yeah,” they both admitted sheepishly. Foggy didn’t say anything more – something Matt was glad of. Not having to hide his capabilities from Karen would be a relief, but he wasn’t sure he could handle her knowing _everything_. She would probably take it better than Foggy, but she would also worry more, hover more. He didn’t need any more of that right now.

She took a deep breath, steadying herself. It wasn’t some massive conspiracy after all.

“So. Matt. You’re enhanced? Like the Avengers?”

Matt couldn’t help himself: he laughed. Somewhere inwardly he realised that was a little too close to the truth for comfort, but that was something to worry about later. “I guess? Some of them, anyway. I hear there’s a guy in Queens who shoots webs and sticks to walls.”

“Can you do that?”

“Matt, what?”

He laughed again, his eyes closing as he ducked his head. “No, I can’t. I never thought of myself as enhanced before, but I guess you’re right. I just… I keep it quiet because…”

He sighed. The truth was always shitty. “I had enough problems as a kid being different, without being _really_ different.”

Karen huffed and sat down heavily at the other end of the sofa, maybe a little closer than she had been before. “Matt, you’re a dumbass. I get it, but this is me and Foggy. You two have known each other forever – you should have said something sooner.”

He had to concede that one. If nothing else, the Daredevil thing might not have been such a surprise if Foggy had known what he was capable of earlier. “Yeah, I know.”

“And Foggy? You’re even more of a dumbass. You’re mad about something Matt can’t control.”

Foggy started to say something – more than likely defend himself against that entirely defensible statement (since that wasn’t what Foggy was actually mad about, not really) – but clearly thought better. “Kind of,” he allowed eventually.

“You’re mad he didn’t tell you, and so am I, but people keep secrets for all kinds of reasons. I get why Matt didn’t tell us, and I think you do too.”

Foggy sighed heavily and Matt decided to let this play out. He wanted to see where this was going to end up, where the equilibrium would be formed.

“I do get it,” Foggy said finally. “I do. That’s why I forgave him for not telling me back in college.”

Not for his extra-curricular activities though. That was a careful omission, counsellor.

“Good. That’s good. I hated you two not talking. I wish you’d told me too, Matt. When you told Foggy. Then maybe I could have understood what was going on.”

He ducked his head. There was no way he could have faced telling Karen then. Honestly it had never occurred to mention his gifts without mentioning his alter ego. Without talking about his past, about Stick and the war he wanted no part of. About Elektra.

“I’ve never told anyone,” he confessed. “Not even the nuns at the orphanage. Not even my dad.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, Karen. My dad had a lot going on, trying to pay my hospital bills, paying for the equipment I needed, and keeping me on the straight and narrow. I didn’t want to put anything else on him right then. And then it was too late.”

Karen shuffled closer and put her arm out. He smiled and leaned against her shoulder. This simple acceptance was nice.

“Can we establish a rule?” Her voice was softer, probably taking into consideration that he was so close to her.

“Shoot.”

“If we’ve got clients, or we’re in public, do what you have to, but around us? Don’t pretend to be something you’re not.”

Liquid sloshed in Foggy’s direction. He had lifted a coffee cup to toast them. “Hear, hear.”

“Sounds good,” Matt agreed. “Now, come on, Fog; share that coffee.”

“Get it yourself, lazybones,” Foggy teased, settling into his seat now that the drama was over. “Show off a bit.”

Matt shook his head and straightened up out of Karen’s embrace. He pushed himself up and crossed the room unerringly. This in itself was not that impressive – it was his apartment after all. He knew where everything was. However, closing his hand around one cup on the first attempt, pulling it free from the cardboard tray, then doing the same with the other, was probably a little bit more of a spectacle. It only took a single sniff of each cup to identify which was Karen’s vanilla latte and which was his cappuccino so that he could hand her the right one.

“That’s not movement through the air or whatever,” she observed.

“Heat from the cups,” he told her.

“Okay.”

They lapsed into silence as they finally had the coffee Foggy had provided. Matt had just taken a bite of his muffin when Karen drew a sharp breath.

“I guess I should thank you for saving me from Rance.”

Foggy choked on his mocha.


End file.
